Improved Research Needed to Boost Tire Recycling in Europe

The market for scrap tires is under increased pressure as the European Union continues to put pressure on what can be landfilled. During the recently concluded Bureau of International Recycling spring meeting various attendees at the tire division looked at the changes being implemented on the continent and the impact they are having on scrap tires.

A major factor in the scrap tire market has been the European Union landfill controls that were implemented last summer. This policy resulted in an additional 750,000 metric tons of scrap tires being redirected to the recycling market each year.

Barend Ten Bruggencate of Bruggencate of VACO, the Netherlands, who chaired the BIR’s Tires Roundtable, noted that the end result of this move was an increase in stocks, pressure on margins, a decline in the granulate price, and an even greater need for tire recycling innovation.

Ten Bruggencate noted that collaborative research was already taking place between industry and some leading European universities, and that further investment in tire recycling research was being studied by the BLIC, a European-based rubber industry organization.

An area of increased interest was the development in Canada of a building material derived from scrap tires whose characteristics resembled those of stone. “Tests have been done and the forecasts are really good,’ he told delegates.”

The chairman talked of ‘booming’ sales of rubber granulate in The Netherlands for use in sports pitches, as well as of the potentially highly significant role that the cement industry could play ‘in reducing the mountain of end-of-life tyres’.

Ten Bruggencate said that several established EU member states - notably the UK - were encountering problems in implementing the legislation introduced last year relating to the landfilling whole tires, and were still relying on landfill for disposing of a significant proportion of the scrap tires.